On Easter morning we will read these words from Luke 24:5. The women in the story have gone back to the tomb to perform the traditional burial rituals, thinking that Jesus’ life was just a thing of the past. Now after having heard the end of the story for so many years you’d think we’d begin to behave differently, but some days it seems that we are still behaving as if Jesus’ life is just a piece of the past, a story written many years ago with no impact on our lives today.
Perhaps we fall into the habit of simply doing what is traditional, revisiting old scenes from our own past and expecting nothing different in the future. Perhaps, despite knowing that endless pursuit of money, pleasure, power, and status are ultimately dead ends, we keep wasting our lives chasing things that won’t last, and can’t bring life. Maybe we still are intent on honoring old dead bones and thinking that that’s all that lies ahead. Why do we spend so much time looking for the living among the dead?
The Easter story does not end with that question, but with a declaration: “He is not here, he is risen!” (Luke 24:5) We worship and follow a living Lord, who is still at work in our world bringing healing, sight, forgiveness, and life. We can choose to wallow in the misery of our past, or listen instead to the voice that calls us out into a new day. Jesus’ life is not a thing of the past, it is our present and future hope, it is a promise that we can never be separated from the power of the one who loves us!
These weeks of Lent are a time to look where we’ve been, but not to give in to hopelessness or apathy, but instead to re-commit our lives to the one who lives at Easter, and lives today.
God’s Peace,
Pastor John Twiton
